Name: Milk or Cream Codfish
Ingredients: one teaspoonful of flour; a large tablespoonful of salt codfish very fine; a cupful of milk; a slice of dipped toast; salt; pepper

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Milk or Cream Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

Pick up a large tablespoonful of salt codfish very fine.
Freshen it considerably by placing it over the fire in a basin, covering it with cold water as it comes to a boil.
Turn off the water and freshen again if very salt, then turn off the water until dry.

Make the codfish in milk

Pour over half a cupful of milk or thin cream.
Add a bit of butter, a sprinkle of pepper, and a thickening made of one teaspoonful of flour or cornstarch, wet up with a little milk.
When this boils up, turn over a slice of dipped toast.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

610Calories

21 gProtein

9 gFat

108 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Codfish	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26,984 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salt codfish: Provides the main savoury flavour and the salty, flaky body of the dish.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that the thickening sets into a creamy sauce.
Flour: Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats and boils.
Dipped toast: Soaks up the creamy codfish sauce and serves as the base for the dish.

The step that matters

Freshening the codfish. Salt codfish is cured with a lot of salt, so it must be soaked and drained well. If it is left too salty, the sauce will taste harsh, and if it stays wet, the milk will be diluted.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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Milk or Cream Codfish